Mahatma Gandhi and Freedom Movement

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Mahatma Gandhi and Freedom Movement

In January 1915, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
returned to his homeland after two decades of
residence abroad. These years had been spent for
the most part in South Africa, where he went as a
lawyer, and in time became a leader of the Indian
community in that territory.

As the historian
Chandran Devanesan has remarked, South Africa was
“the making of the Mahatma”. It was in South Africa
that Mahatma Gandhi first forged the distinctive
techniques of non-violent protest known as
satyagraha, first promoted harmony between religions,
and first alerted upper-caste Indians to their
discriminatory treatment of low castes and women.
The India that Mahatma Gandhi came back to in
1915 was rather different from the one that he had
left in 1893. Although still a colony of the British,
it was far more active in a political sense. The Indian
National Congress now had branches in most major
cities and towns. Through the Swadeshi movement
of 1905-07 it had greatly broadened its appeal
among the middle classes. That movement had
thrown up some towering leaders – among them
Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Maharashtra, Bipin
Chandra Pal of Bengal, and Lala Lajpat Rai of
Punjab. The three were known as “Lal, Bal and Pal”,
the alliteration conveying the all-India character
of their struggle, since their native provinces were
very distant from one another. Where
these leaders advocated militant
opposition to colonial rule, there was
a group of “Moderates” who preferred
a more gradual and persuasive
approach. Among these Moderates
was Gandhiji’s acknowledged political
mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, as
well as Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who,
like Gandhiji, was a lawyer of Gujarati
extraction trained in London.
On Gokhale’s advice, Gandhiji spent
a year travelling around British India,
getting to know the land and its
peoples. His first major public
appearance was at the opening of the
Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in
February 1916. Among the invitees to
this event were the princes and philanthropists whose
donations had contributed to the founding of the
BHU. Also present were important leaders of the
Congress, such as Annie Besant. Compared to these
dignitaries, Gandhiji was relatively unknown. He had
been invited on account of his work in South Africa,
rather than his status within India.

When his turn came to speak, Gandhiji charged
the Indian elite with a lack of concern for the
labouring poor. The opening of the BHU, he said,
was “certainly a most gorgeous show”. But he worried
about the contrast between the “richly bedecked
noblemen” present and “millions of the poor” Indians
who were absent. Gandhiji told the privileged invitees
that “there is no salvation for India unless you strip
yourself of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your
countrymen in India”. “There can be no spirit of selfgovernment
about us,” he went on, “if we take away
or allow others to take away from the peasants almost
the whole of the results of their labour. Our salvation
can only come through the farmer. Neither the
lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are
going to secure it.”

The opening of the BHU was an occasion for
celebration, marking as it did the opening of a
nationalist university, sustained by Indian money
and Indian initiative. But rather than adopt a tone
of self-congratulation, Gandhiji chose instead to
remind those present of the peasants and workers
who constituted a majority
of the Indian population,
yet were unrepresented in
the audience.

Gandhiji’s speech at
Banaras in February 1916
was, at one level, merely a
statement of fact – namely,
that Indian nationalism
was an elite phenomenon,
a creation of lawyers and
doctors and landlords.
But, at another level, it
was also a statement of
intent – the first public
announcement of Gandhiji’s
own desire to make Indian
nationalism more properly
representative of the Indian people as a whole. In the
last month of that year, Gandhiji was presented with
an opportunity to put his precepts into practice. At the
annual Congress, held in Lucknow in December 1916,
he was approached by a peasant from Champaran in
Bihar, who told him about the harsh treatment of
peasants by British indigo planters.
The Making and Unmaking of Non-cooperation

Mahatma Gandhi was to spend much of 1917 in
Champaran, seeking to obtain for the peasants security
of tenure as well as the freedom to cultivate the crops
of their choice. The following year, 1918, Gandhiji was
involved in two campaigns in his home state of
Gujarat. First, he intervened in a labour dispute in
Ahmedabad, demanding better working conditions for
the textile mill workers. Then he joined peasants in
Kheda in asking the state for the remission of taxes
following the failure of their harvest.

These initiatives in Champaran, Ahmedabad and
Kheda marked Gandhiji out as a nationalist with
a deep sympathy for the poor. At the same time,
these were all localised struggles. Then, in 1919,
the colonial rulers delivered into Gandhiji’s lap
an issue from which he could construct a much
wider movement. During the Great War of 1914-18,
the British had instituted censorship of the press
and permitted detention without trial. Now, on
the recommendation of a committee chaired by
Sir Sidney Rowlatt, these tough measures were
continued. In response, Gandhiji called for a
countrywide campaign against the “Rowlatt Act”.
In towns across North and West India, life came to
a standstill, as shops shut down and schools closed
in response to the bandh call. The protests were
particularly intense in the Punjab, where many men
had served on the British side in the War –
expecting to be rewarded for their service. Instead
they were given the Rowlatt Act. Gandhiji was
detained while proceeding to the Punjab, even as
prominent local Congressmen were arrested. The
situation in the province grew progressively more
tense, reaching a bloody climax in Amritsar in
April 1919, when a British Brigadier ordered his
troops to open fire on a nationalist meeting. More
than four hundred people were killed in what is
known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
It was the Rowlatt satyagraha that made Gandhiji
a truly national leader. Emboldened by its success,
Gandhiji called for a campaign of “non-cooperation”
with British rule. Indians who wished colonialism to
end were asked to stop attending schools, colleges
and law courts, and not pay taxes. In sum, they were
asked to adhere to a “renunciation of (all) voluntary
association with the (British) Government”. If noncooperation
was effectively carried out, said Gandhiji,
India would win swaraj within a year. To further
broaden the struggle he had joined hands with the
Khilafat Movement that sought to restore the
Caliphate, a symbol of Pan-Islamism which had
recently been abolished by the Turkish ruler
Kemal Attaturk.